Fantastical Materialism

Visited the Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention over the weekend. Thankfully, didn’t feel urged to buy anything. Got a giveaway but dated comic instead. Some say a difference between boys and men is the price of their toys. It’s true to some extent. Of course, the definition of toys change – they can become real cars instead of tin cars for instance, but what makes them toys is still the same – they are used for play, albeit in more complex ways! Struck me that no matter what kind of toys one gets, it’s still a form of materialism.

Even when you get an action figure Optimus Prime instead of a real truck, it is still materialism, though costing a fraction of the price. Maybe fantasies in cartoons and comics should so, instead of crystallising them in solid representative forms to render them more real. Think fantasy characters, equipment, vehicles, worlds and such. The lessons brought about by these characters in storytelling are good enough for me. Let me keep them spiritual in nature; not material. Let me collect lessons; not collectibles! (Incidentally, the artist Brian Bolland was a special guest, and I once bought a Batman staute designed by him!)

2 thoughts on “Fantastical Materialism

  1. Interesting. Brian was in Singapore for a workshop a long long time ago, and he held a master class for people (kids mainly) who were interested in doing comics. Until you mentioned his name, I had totally forgotten who it was. What you wrote causes me to reflect on the values I held then, my perspective on asthetics and what a Malay girl in the class did when he gave us an assignment. I’m as pig-headed now as I am then.

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